Another Hemi Update

Okay, I dropped the pan last night and pulled the timing cover and found... well... nothing bad, but nothing to jump for joy about. The most important thing is that the internals really are spotless! Oil was clean, oil pump looked new, pistons are new (look like NOS HY DUTY brand .040 over cast pistons), timing chain had about .095 of deflection and is of the stock replacement type as well.

The thing I'm not so happy about is that the cam appears to be completely stock spec if not actually THEE stock cam. Doesn't look worn per say, but nothing exciting about it. I'm going to put a dial indicator on it tonight and see if I can figure out what the actual lift is. A big cam in this thing wouldn't be good with the piston choice anyway. The compression is low and could easily be over-cammed at this point.

SO... what's the plan, you ask? I'm going to clean this up, repaint it, regasket, reassemble, change the intake manifold and head bolts and pretty much run it just like it is. It will work to shake down the Model A just fine. In the mean time I will work on building the high compression motor I would like to have with one of my other blocks. Then do the transplant later on. This "354" (or 368, whatever you want to call it) just isn't going to get the performance I want, but it's still a Hemi and it's still cooler than any newer era motor.

HMMMM... low compression, large bore, short stroke... almost sounds like a good candidate for a blower! HWUA HWUA HWUA!!!